File Serving for Heterogeneous Clients

Most popular client types supported, quickly, easily, and reliably: The X6 NSS Gateway and Single Box models can support various client types from Microsoft (Vista/XP/2003/2000), Apple (OSX, OS9.x), Linux/UNIX (various distributions). All of these clients can access common network shares within minutes of system deployment. Advanced and convenient features include Home directory support, FTP service, user/group based quota, Local user/group support, snapshot, server mirror and fail-over, and scheduled remote backup service with version control. Due to fine tuned embedded OS, X6 NSS can efficiently serve hand-full of clients in small workgroup or, scale up to hundreds of clients in a large sized department without sacrificing performance or reliability.

High speed file serving: X6 NSS has been proven over and over in the field, its ability to support hundreds of clients efficiently and reliably. Performance increasing features start from highly tuned OS for maximum disk and network I/O throughput, mated with carefully selected hardware configurations that maximize performance and capacity. Multiple NIC aggregation with various types of bonding increase the bandwidth and fail-over capability. RAID over RAID feature achieves the maximum performance while maintaining redundancy in HDD’s. Built-in support for Fibre Channel (FC) and iSCSI also enhances maximum storage capacity, throughput and range of applications for deployment.

Thin provisioning- dynamic capacity sizing on demand: X6 NSS has the ability to increase the storage volume size as more capacity is needed, without interrupting service. It can not only grow the size of storage volume within a single physical box, it can also aggregate multiple physical boxes into a single storage volume name space.

Standards based security & ACL: X6 NSS is equipped to support industry standard security and access control list. For user management, ADS/PDC, NIS, LDAP, Kerberos and Local ACL is supported. For system level or storage volume level security, it is equipped with UNIX Host security, IP sec, CHAP (iSCSI), and Host IP blocking.

3rd party application support: 3rd party agents, especially for backup applications, require agents to be installed to data source or target systems. Using industry standard methods, necessary backup agents or virus protection application can be installed, allowing X6 NSS to easily become integral part of the entire network.

Backup Storage

Simple and modular design, perfect for simple applications: The X6 NSS Single Box or iSCSI Target solution may be used for backup storage. These configurations are modular in capacity, performance, and redundancy.

Scheduled snapshot: Multiple snapshots can be assigned per each Logical Volume (file system based or, block level based) with dedicated scheduler. This feature enables multiple copies of changed data to be saved/accessed in case of accidental deletion of live data. Recovering data is done in minutes, not in hours like traditional tape media based backup solution.

Real-time data mirror & fail-over: Two independent X6 NSS Single Box or iSCSI Target models can be paired into a mirrored set of network share or block device, an optional feature known as SFM (Server Fail-over & Mirror). Data is written first to primary system, then, copied to the secondary system in real-time. For continued service in the event of complete system failure, secondary system takes over the entire service such as data transfer, ACL, quota, snapshot, etc… Clients attached to this configuration often do not notice the transparent fail-over.

Scheduled, incremental replication: Replication offered by the X6 NSS Gateway and Single Box models is simple to manage, yet, feature rich to replicate specified data from one system to another in local or wide area network. Differential (or, AKA versioning) is supported so that only the changed data is replicated, eliminating capacity waste due to duplicate data. For video content or large single files, full copy with encryption/compression is offered for optimal speed.

High-Performance Computing

High speed file serving: X6 NSS has been proven over and over in the field, its ability to support hundreds of clients efficiently and reliably. Performance increasing features start from highly tuned OS for maximum disk and network I/O throughput, mated with carefully selected hardware configurations that maximize performance and capacity. Multiple NIC aggregation with various types of bonding increase the bandwidth and fail-over capability. RAID over RAID feature achieves the maximum performance while maintaining redundancy in HDD’s. Built-in support for Fibre Channel (FC) and iSCSI also enhances maximum storage capacity, throughput and range of applications for deployment.

Scheduled, incremental replication: Replication offered by the X6 NSS Gateway and Single Box models is simple to manage, yet, feature rich to replicate specified data from one system to another in local or wide area network. Differential (or, AKA versioning) is supported so that only the changed data is replicated, eliminating capacity waste due to duplicate data. For video content or large single files, full copy with encryption/compression is offered for optimal speed.

On-line capacity scale out: The X6 NSS Gateway and iSCSI Target models have on-line capacity scale out feature (aka Multi-box Aggregation) so that storage capacity residing in separate systems can be aggregated into a single storage volume (network share or block device) using various types of RAID. This feature, supported in 64bit OS, can scale single Logical Volume to 8EB. Various RAID types provide redundancy and performance enhancement for disk I/O while network port aggregation for Gigabit Ethernet, 10Gigabit Ethernet, or Infiniband does same for network I/O. This dynamic scaling of storage capacity and network bandwidth gives the flexibility to deploy X6 NSS modular solution on as-needed basis quickly and seamlessly.

Database Storage

iSCSI target support: For database applications that require to manage its own file system, X6 iSCSI Target model attaches directly to an application server using iSCSI target module. iSCSI Off-load Engine is not required since the target module is running inside the OS and it can fully utilize its NIC ports’ bandwidth to deliver optimal performance (features supported such as MPIO and NIC aggregation). In addition, redundancy and capacity scale out features such as SFM and Multi-box Aggregation, X6 iSCSI Target model can accommodate small to large databases without use of 3rd party components.

Real-time data mirror & fail-over: Two independent X6 NSS Single Box or iSCSI Target models can be paired into a mirrored set of network share or block device, an optional feature known as SFM (Server Fail-over & Mirror). Data is written first to primary system, then, copied to the secondary system in real-time. For continued service in the event of complete system failure, secondary system takes over the entire service such as data transfer, ACL, quota, snapshot, etc… Clients attached to this configuration often do not notice the transparent fail-over.

On-line capacity scale out: The X6 NSS Gateway and iSCSI Target models have on-line capacity scale out feature (aka Multi-box Aggregation) so that storage capacity residing in separate systems can be aggregated into a single storage volume (network share or block device) using various types of RAID. This feature, supported in 64bit OS, can scale single Logical Volume to 8EB. Various RAID types provide redundancy and performance enhancement for disk I/O while network port aggregation for Gigabit Ethernet, 10Gigabit Ethernet, or Infiniband does same for network I/O. This dynamic scaling of storage capacity and network bandwidth gives the flexibility to deploy X6 NSS modular solution on as-needed basis quickly and seamlessly.